Pastor Matt Ford of Restoration Church, a new “church plant” in the city of Hampton, has become quite intentional about serving the community in the past eight months.

His church, designed to cater to non-denominational Christians, had a direct hand on upgrading a local home in the historic area of Oak Street in Hampton.

“I began reaching out to local businesses, homeowners and even city officials, trying to find out how our people can be useful to the community,” said Ford. “A local city employee notified me that the homeowners on Oak Street were in great need and couldn’t fix up their house on their own.”

The result was a team of more than 22 volunteers and donations to give the house a crisp, fresh coat of paint to make it look brand, spanking new.

The house was painted in La Fonda Boulder official historic preservation paint.

Over a three-month period, volunteers communed on four separate Saturdays, beginning in April and ending on June 23.

“The home is about 100 years old and has needed a lot of work,” Ford said. “We didn’t want to view our work as a project in which we were working on a house, but more like helping restore someone’s home. A house is a structure. A home is where real people with real souls reside.”

To accomplish the painting work, volunteers pooled their resources. Many brought their own scrapes, paint brushes and ladders.

A local Home Depot donated several gallons of paint and the city contributed canisters of paint that were going to be thrown away.

In addition to the paint job, plumbing underneath the house was done and siding was replaced on some parts of the house where it was rotten.

Projects like this one, said Ford, are at the heart of what his church hopes to spread throughout the community.

“Our mission field is our neighborhood, our school, our work place and our hobbies,” he said. “Jesus didn’t send us as missionaries to Zimbabwe, he sent us to the Hampton area. The homeowners, the government, the businesses and the schools — we’re here to serve them.”

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